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Adaptation of California’s electricity sector to climate change

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Abstract

Climate change is likely to pose considerable new challenges to California’s electricity sector. This paper primarily focuses on the adaptation challenges of an important component of the energy arena: electricity demand in the residential and commercial sectors and electricity supply. The primary challenge to California’s electricity sector will likely be the increase in demand for air conditioning as a result of rising temperatures. In addition, renewable energy sources, which are an increasing share of the electricity portfolio, are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Many of the key players have been actively considering the implications of climate change. Because electricity generation accounts for nearly 30% of greenhouse gas emissions, this sector has been a target of the state’s efforts to reduce emissions. Fortunately, many of the same tools can simultaneously improve the sector’s resilience to a changing climate. Demand management strategies and supply diversification are both important strategies. Local governments can play a central role in encouraging the adoption of more energy efficient building codes and the use of more renewable sources, such as solar energy. The positive steps taken by many local governments are encouraging. Steps to increase public awareness are an important, often missing component, however. Increases in research, development, and demonstration to improve system resiliency and develop new energy conservation tools are also needed.

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Notes

  1. See Moser and Luers (2008) for a general discussion of adaptive response challenges and the importance of these three factors.

  2. Extreme heat events are defined as days with temperatures above the 90th percentile for a given baseline period.

  3. In addition to being without power due to generation, transmission and distribution problems, households also suffer more air-conditioning breakdowns at higher temperatures (Mills 2008).

  4. In the Miller et al. study (2007), changing the thermostat by 10° could reduce projected increases in electricity demand by roughly one third for inland cities and by as much as 95% for cooler coastal cities.

  5. This assumes a price of $0.10 per kWh.

  6. The Hoover Dam provides 626 MW of power to California (CEC 2003)

  7. As described below, under the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), first adopted in 2002 and later modified in 2011, utilities are required to increase the share of renewables to 33% by 2020.

  8. Geothermal (4.7%), biomass (2.1%), small-scale hydroelectric (2.1%), wind (1.8%), and solar (0.2%) (CEC 2007d)

  9. Power plants consume a substantially lower share of water withdrawals than other sectors, however, with much of the water going back into the system after it is used by the plants.

  10. These discharge-related issues are commonly referred to as 316(a) impacts because they are regulated by the US Environmental Protection Agency under Section 316(a) of the Clean Water Act.

  11. The Diablo Canyon cooling water intake often gets clogged due to debris from storm surges, forcing the plant to shut down. Although the plant itself is well above sea level, greater impacts on the intake may occur with sea level rise, increasing the frequency and duration of power reductions (Aspen Environmental Group and M.Cubed 2005; Personal communication with Joe O’Hagan, California Energy Commission, July 23, 2007).

  12. There are many small power plants along the coast that use cooling towers or do not require water for steam condensation (Personal communication with Joe O’Hagan, December 10, 2007).

  13. For more details, see http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/research/index.html

  14. “Cap and trade”—whereby emissions producers are “capped” at certain levels of emissions and allowed to trade emissions permits—is expected to be an official California mandate, once the Air Resources Board approves the regulation at the end of October 2011.

  15. In the future, advanced multiple stage evaporative coolers have the potential to reduce annual electricity consumption by 80% (Personal communication with Marshall Hunt, UC Davis Western Cooling Efficiency Center, December 9, 2007). While these units do use water, onsite water use is almost offset with kWh savings that saves the water that it takes to produce kWh. In addition, water use for cooling can be easily offset with plumbing fixtures, distribution layout, landscape choices, and super-low water use appliances. Finally, low cost water storage units with the ability to use rainwater are also being evaluated for widespread use.

  16. See http://www.pge.com/about_us/environment/features/climatesmart.html

  17. Pumped storage is a hydroelectric source of power in which electricity is generated by the use of water that has been pumped into a reservoir or a holding tank at a higher altitude (height).

  18. Thermal energy storage refers to a number of technologies that store energy in a thermal reservoir for later reuse. In the context of this discussion, the principal application is the production of ice or chilled water at night, which is then used to cool buildings during the day.

  19. http://www.usmayors.org/climateprotection/agreement.htm

  20. These costs include pumping and operations and maintenance costs, and the wide range of costs reflects the wide range of storage options, conveyance facilities, etc.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the Public Policy Institute of California for inviting me to prepare this paper and the financial support from Next Ten, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and The Nature Conservancy. I would also like to thank the following people for providing information or advice for the preparation of this paper: Cal Broomhead (City and County of San Francisco), Merwin Brown (California Institute for Energy and Environment), Lloyd Cibulka (California Institute for Energy and Environment), Guido Franco (California Energy Commission), Gary Freeman (Pacific Gas & Electric Company), Marshall Hunt (UC Davis Western Cooling Efficiency Center), Norm Miller (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Evan Mills (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Joe O’Hagan (California Energy Commission), Wendy Pulling (Pacific Gas & Electric Company), Sue Tierney (Analysis Group), and Lorraine White (California Energy Commission). Finally, I would also like to thank the reviewers of an earlier version of this paper: Guido Franco, Evan Mills, Wendy Pulling, and Michael Teitz. Furthermore, I am indebted to Louise Bedsworth, Ellen Hanak, and Lynette Ubois of the Public Policy Institute of California who made this paper more intelligible than I could produce. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the helpful comments from the anonymous journal reviewers.

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  1. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Building 90-4000, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

    Edward Vine

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Vine, E. Adaptation of California’s electricity sector to climate change. Climatic Change 111, 75–99 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0242-2

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